A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (34 page)

‘She wasn’t what you were expecting?’ Tayeb had asked, but Frieda didn’t answer then. In some ways, yes; some ways, no. The brevity of the meeting was a shock after all those years of wondering and all those endless conversations she had had with her in her mind. There was the raggedness of her mother’s hair, black and grey and hanging unwashed and netted. It was curious, the odd mixture of low self-esteem and arrogance that came through her expression. The fact that she had chosen that life, over her, left Frieda with outrage in her chest. No, less than outrage, something duller, more like a stomach ache: none the less it was unwanted.

Steam curled its way around her, easing the nausea that had come when she re-read the pamphlet in the car. The bath water took her down and evaporated thoughts of razor blades on the tiny strand of skin that connects the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. As a child she once told her dad that she wanted to be a mermaid:
I want my feet to bleed from dancing on swords and walking on glass: I want to dissolve into the crack of the froth and foam, to be left to fizz on the edge of the beach until oblivious.
He had answered, ‘You don’t know what you are saying.’

As Frieda rose noisily out of the water she heard Tayeb open the door and come into the small room. She had left all of her clothes outside the bathroom on the bed and so had no choice but to go out just wrapped in the large pink floral towel. Tayeb placed a takeaway bag on the table and the room immediately smelled of cardamom and grease.

Frieda smiled at him. ‘You got curry?’

‘Yes.’

She looked down at herself, with a towel wrapped around her, tucked under her arms. Tayeb was looking at her shoulders.

‘Curry is a good idea,’ she said, grabbing the bag. ‘Shall we eat?’

After the food and a glass of beer Frieda lay back and rested against pillows. Tayeb flicked on the portable TV and sat awkwardly next to her. She was conscious of being naked under her towel. She should get dressed. She only ate half of her curry portion, and stood up to go to the bathroom to get some water. As she walked back in, Tayeb was sitting upright on the bed.

‘Frieda,’ he said, ‘your back it’s . . . beautiful.’

‘Oh.’ She felt a blush rising in her neck.

Tayeb put all of the curry wrappings into the brown bag, tying it all up. Then he opened the door and placed the bag in the corridor and immediately the smell began to fade.

‘Frieda,’ he said again.

‘Yes.’

‘I would really like to . . .’

She looked at him. The sound of a TV from another room came through the wall, a bang bang bang thumping theme tune to something. Frieda stood in front of Tayeb looking at his face, she rubbed one foot against the other, hyper-aware, suddenly, of her exposed feet, her unlovely, knobbly feet.

‘I would really like to draw on you.’

Frieda twisted her head, looked at him. ‘Draw?’

‘On your back,’ he said. She paused for a minute, her mouth was dry, her eyes were sore. She opened and closed her fist. Why not? She liked the idea, actually.

‘OK.’

Tayeb grinned, and went to his bag and pulled something out. ‘These are bamboo sticks, for Arabic calligraphy. I will draw on your spine, the ink will stay for a while, but it will come off, eventually. What do you think?’

‘OK,’ she said again, calm, as if drawing Arabic calligraphy with bamboo was a perfectly normal activity for her and the skin on her back. She lay face-down on the bed and turned her head to the side away from the window, towards the wall. He moved about a bit and then settled on to the bed next to her.

‘Once,’ Tayeb said, ‘calligraphers made their own ink from walnut, mixed with pomegranate skin and water.’

‘I like the sound of that.’

Tayeb tugged at the towel gently, and Frieda shifted slightly. He pulled the towel so that the whole of her back was exposed and the air was cool on her skin. His eyes must have been looking at her, but instead of becoming self-conscious or ticklish, she closed her eyes and forced herself to be still. There was a tap-tap, the feeling of a point, and then a tracing of a line along her spine. Tayeb pulled the point away and paused, and then it began again. A long, drawn pressure along her back, pushing quite hard, followed by a sharp, almost ticklish sensation of the nib on her skin and for the next few strokes she flinched at each strike, each line, but by the fifth or sixth her muscles responded, flaring under the skin and then melting down. The TV sang its clanging noises.

‘What are you drawing?’ she said, mostly into the pillow.

There was a pause before he answered, ‘An Arabian Ostrich feather.’

‘Oh.’

It seemed to Frieda that each stroke grew more delicate, longer. In a slow voice, with his velvet-Arab accent, he began to tell her about this bird, this Arabian Ostrich.

‘It’s extinct now.’

‘Oh no,’ Frieda turned her face so that it was not so squished into the pillow.

Tayeb continued, ‘My father used to tell me stories about the desert ostriches,’ he said, as the strokes grew even longer and softer on Frieda’s back. ‘They could run faster than any other beast and their necks were long, like snakes. They were more graceful, more beautiful than any other bird.’

‘Did you ever see one of these birds?’ she asked.

‘No. They became . . . I was born in 1967 and they became extinct sometime before then.’ His voice was low, almost like a hum.

‘That’s very sad.’

‘Hmm.’ The strokes continued, like rain. ‘Nobody bothered to preserve them; where I come from, they kill birds with no consideration of their survival.’

‘But I thought you said they were the fastest birds.’

‘Not faster than a bullet, sadly.’ Frieda pictured the graceful ostriches shot and heaped in a pile.

‘I used to believe they were magic,’ Tayeb continued, ‘and that I could ride on the back of one, fly across huge distances.’ As he talked, the pace of his drawing slowed down slightly.

‘Now I realise that it was stupid of me to dream of flying away on a bird that cannot fly.’

Frieda opened her eyes. She could feel the weight of him moving around on the bed. He himself had not actually touched her; it was just the bamboo stick tracing his message. Each feather-touch rang through her skin and a soft, sleepiness came over her. Behind her eyelids she saw her mother, with her striped hair and her broken tongue, but then she disappeared again; then Frieda was sinking as if she were taken with Tayeb’s skin and he with hers, as if their bones could come together with this delicately drawn tattoo.

She had fallen asleep. She sat up. Tayeb was not in the room; he had gone out somewhere, for a cigarette perhaps. The owl was completely awake now and staring at her. It was looking at her with a distinct expression of expectation and hunger and, for the first time, it called to her, a light hooting noise as she stood up from the bed, naked, and walked into the bathroom, twisting her neck around to look at her back.

There was a beautifully drawn feather along her spine. Its tendrils stretched from the vertebrae and spread along her ribs in a rippled flow. She twisted further to try to see the whole thing but she needed a changing room mirror to see it properly. The ink was drying and as it was doing so it was tickling her skin, a pleasant feeling. She wandered back into the room, looking at the owl, wondering if it were hungry, and thinking that she would like to remain naked for ever, so that the entire world might see her back.

The Art of Wheeling:
The rule for climbing universally recommended reads, ‘Pay no attention to hills. Ride them.’

33.
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Notes

September 19th

I am blessed to be sitting in an English-style study complete with a fireplace. How we remove ourselves from the elements!

Urumtsi is very Turkic and reminds me of Kashgar with its Moslem area situated a mile in length from the South Gate and the mosques calling their siren-songs to stop the men working at noon.

Mr Steyning’s house is simple, but also luxurious, if shelter from the desert is to be counted as luxury – and, to my mind, it very much is. Last night I slept on a bed, an actual bed, imported from Russia, and there was a jug and a basin and the water was clean. We were met at the Outer Gate by another Cingalese servant who had new animals for us to ride on, and refreshments: brick tea and soft bread. I was surprised because Mr Steyning abruptly left me under the care of the Cingalese and with a slight wave, disappeared. The city is not beautiful but it throbs with life. The roads are filthy and the low buildings unattractive. There seem to be flies everywhere. I was led through the streets and huddles of men and women stood up and openly stared at me. For the first time I could see the influences of Russia: Cyrillic script on walls and signs, and Russian bublikis rolls and black bread displayed on bakers’ trays.

We drew up at the Mission House, finally, an almost European-style house with two floors. The house next door also belongs to the Mission, apparently, and houses the servants. Mr Steyning was at the door, fully suited, with shining shoes and black hat – he had changed, specifically to receive Ai-Lien and me to his house, and he looked, I realised, extremely robust, eyes shining, not at all tired from the journey.

I am the first British woman ever to visit Urumtsi. But, more on that later.

September 21st

Trouble with sleep: The moment I close my eyes then I am back in the hovel in the ground, being buried in the dark with Mah who might crush Ai-Lien and me at any moment and outside are the thieves. To assuage this I have been re-reading my books for courage. Dear Richard Burton, how you’ve watched over me. Dear Maria E. Ward, your wisdom never fails. Millicent’s Bible does not bring me solace.

September 25th

Mr Steyning’s associate, Mr Greeves, has returned from a research tour to the Outer-Mongolia where he has been recording the speech of the natives on his recording machine. He arrived flanked by a small army of native boys carrying his possessions which included bundles of fabrics and botanical specimens, his recording machine equipment and goodness knows what else.

Let me attempt to draw him here since his arrival has brought a change in the atmosphere: so, a vivid presence, he is small, blue-eyed and simmers with England, despite his obvious ease at being here. He is shimmery, like a Dorset dew-pond, all green and blues. His moustache looks much-sculpted and held together with some sort of grease, and he moves in flashes, like a grass snake, rendering Mr Steyning larger in contrast and even more bear-like than usual. Apparently Mr Greeves was a doctor in London. He examined Ai-Lien fully on his return, concluding that apart from dehydration, she is otherwise in full health.

Urumtsi is an unhygienic town not at all helped by the rotting melon that is flung everywhere by its inhabitants, which in turn encourages the flies. Nevertheless, Mr Steyning’s accommodation is extremely comfortable. Ai-Lien and I have been given over a whole room and an ‘auntie’ comes to help look after Ai-Lien. This has freed me some time to write my book, and I sit at Mr Steyning’s own personal desk to write it. His room is like the personal study of a Yorkshire squire, full as it is with his collections and artefacts and bits and pieces kept under glass. Mr Steyning is, perhaps, rather the Victorian.

I am fairly stuffed with meals and conversation. We have had entertaining meals most nights so far, with some of Mr Steyning’s Russian colleagues and their glamorous wives. This evening, Mr Greeves and Mr Steyning both spoke enthusiastically of my book. After dinner Mr Steyning let me know, in that soft voice of his, that he has written directly to Mr Hatchett on my behalf to assist the arrangement for the transfer of the £150 payment.

I am ashamed to say that I have not yet written to Mother. I do not know how to tell her about Lizzie whose absence echoes, without halt, through my bones. There has been no news of Millicent or the priest. I try to think of other things.

But I must work and here we have it, notes so far, on Urumtsi for the GUIDE:

Historically the site of many battles between Mongols, Mohammedans and Chinese, the ancient city of Urumtsi sits at the cross-roads of four ancient trade routes: a long route from Hami to Kansu; a route connecting it to Ili and Russia; a connection to Mongolia; and a long stretch to Kashgar. Originally called ‘Bishbalik’, it is the Uighur capital of the Sinkiang kingdom. The Uighurs came from the North of the province, but were forced out and settled on the edges of the Celestial Mountains and even as far down as Hami. The Chinese finally gained power over the Dzungaria province in the mid-eighteenth century. During the Mohammedan Rebellion of 1865 many Chinese were murdered . . .

Yes, oh dear. Too dry.

September 27th

I am the first British woman ever to have visited Urumtsi and as such, I seem to be considered a sort of celebrity. People have been visiting me constantly. I have met the Chinese Governor and his wife, the Qazaq leaders, the leading members of the Russian émigré community, a Persian family bearing long fat, aromatic dates. It brings to mind Burton’s comments:
everyone talks, and talking here is always in extremes, either in a whisper, or in a scream
. It is exhausting, but, indeed, what I find more and more is that I want to spend time with Mr Steyning. He is interested in Ai-Lien, I have noticed. He often takes her from the ‘auntie’ and sings to her and soothes her to sleep.